“I saw Willie Nelson had a thing the other day. You see it?” I was over at my brother’s place. He was sitting in a recliner in the living room. I was in the kitchen, mooching a beverage.
“What, the party?” he said back.
“No, the concert.”
“It was the same thing,” my niece said, sitting on the couch, staring at her phone.
“He’s got a thing on TV, now, too,” my brother said. “A…a…a…the f— is that called…docuseries. That’s it.”
“How is that guy still making music? You know?” I said.
“It’s all that Alabama ditchweed,” my brother said.
“No, I mean, how was his career not destroyed for all the schlepping around he’s done? And not been shy about it?”
“What schlepping around? On the tours?”
“I mean, probably,” I said. “But his list of wives and paramours reads like something out of…The Real Housewives of Appalachia Hills.”
“Or the beginning of Idiocracy,” my niece said.
“He boned his third wife while he was married to his second wife—you see that? And she finds out when the bill shows up for the baby.”
“For the baby?” my brother said.
“He bought a baby while he was married to someone else?” my niece said.
“Yeah, why didn’t he just wait another nine months?”
“Whose baby was it?”
“No, he—,”
“What’s the going rate on something like that?” my brother asked.
My sister-in-law walked into the room. “What are you guys talking about now?”
“Don wants another baby,” I said.
“And he’s willing to go to the dark web for it, apparently,” my niece said.
“You bring another baby into this house, you’re taking care of it,” my sister-in-law said. “I got book club and bowling on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“And apparently his first wife met his third wife during a literal redneck shootout,” I went on.
“Nothing brings family together…,” my brother said.
“But there he is, going strong at 90.”
“How many celebrities got their careers ruined by dicking around?” my brother said.
“Dicking around?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. But I’d say far fewer than if it wasn’t consensual. Or if they start smacking some broad. Or they’re not Robert Downey, Jr.”
“There must be a line,” my brother said. “Poach someone else’s fishy pound cake, and you tank your career. Pretend you’re a Turkish sultan with, like, a harem of five hundred strong, and you’re a pop culture hero.”
“Unless you’re Mormon,” my niece said.
“Don’t tell Napoleon Dynamite that,” I said. “Everyone does hate the polygonamists, though.”
“Until they become one,” my brother said.
“Yeah.”
“Then they hate it even more. According to the multiplicity of each and every…partner.”
“How do you figure?” I said.
He turned to look at my sister-in-law in the kitchen. “Never mind,” he says, looking back to the TV.
“No, Don,” my sister-in-law said, stopping what she was doing. “Tell us how you figure.”
“Would you want five hundred of me hanging around all the time?” he said.
She thought for a second. “Yeah, I see your point,” she said.
“You could take care of them black market babies a whole lot easier,” I said.
“There was—”
“You could get your TV show—the Real Househusbands of…500 Househusbands! Of Eugene, Oregon!”
“There—”
“Starring Marky Mark Wahlberg as all 500 Househusbands!” I was on a roll. “With the ghost of Tom Selleck as the grandfather! And David ‘Squiggy’ Lander as the gender-ambiguous neighbor who’s sexually attracted to, like, half of them!” My brother chuckled.
“There was Sandra Bullock’s guy,” my niece finally went on, reading from her phone. “Reese Witherspoon’s guy. Mary-Louise Parker’s guy. Gwen Stefani’s guy.”
“Jude Law did it, remember that?” my sister-in-law said. “Uhh…Hugh Grant. Tiger Woods did it.”
“Yeah, nice gender-discriminatory responses, there,” I said.
“Yeah!” my brother said. “What about the broads?” They both just blinked at him.
Meg Ryan,” I said. “What’s-her face. The other what’s-her-face.”
“Fine, everybody does it,” my sister-in-law said. “Everybody gets busted for it.”
“Except Willie Nelson,” my brother and I said at the same time.
“I think, in the end, it’s just: How much does it hurt your career?” I said. “Because you ain’t in charge of your career. A bunch of other people in suits and board rooms are. That’s all cancel culture is. Twitter doesn’t cancel people. Guys in suits in board rooms cancel people. After reading what people say about them on Twitter.”
“Willie Nelson is, though,” my niece said. “In charge of his career.”
“That just makes my point.”
“Yeah, well, I’d hope by the time I was f—ing 90, I would be too,” my brother said.
“Eh, halfway there, champ,” my sister-in-law said.
“Yeah,” I said. “What better time than when you hit a midlife crisis to start taking some life initiative?”
He paused for a second. “Think I’ll give it a few years,” he said. “See how the whole thing plays out.”
“What, your life or your career?” I said.
“Yeah,” he just said, staring at the TV.
